Just in time for the finale of the Tour de France, Santa Monica’s Caffe Luxxe is teaming with Helen’s Cycles to host an exhibition of rare vintage bikes starting today — July 20th, not January — through the end of September.

Michelle Sarfatti bases his refutation on Bartali’s famed reluctance to discuss his work during the war, and a problematic book written in the 1970s which was the first to claim Bartali had hidden forged identity papers in the frame of his bicycle to smuggle them past the Nazi’s.

Yet the Yad Vashem page cites Holocaust survivors whose identity papers were delivered by Bartali, and notes that he told his story to the daughter of the rabbi who founded the resistance network.

Local

Marketplacetalks with the founder of LA-based Thousand, asking if a better looking helmet will keep people safer on their bikes. Short answer, probably not. Longer answer, only if it gets people who wouldn’t otherwise wear one to strap it on.

Minneapolis police are looking for a bike rider who may have witnessed officers attempting to resuscitate the unarmed Australian woman the cops shot after she had called 911 to report a sexual assault.

Talk about going the wrong way. Atlanta is the latest city to rip out an apparently success bike lane — in this case one built with the support of REI and People For Bikes — and replaced it with parking.

Cyclists in Sydney, Australia are complaining about cars parked in a bike lane, putting children at risk from oncoming cars when they have to ride into traffic to get around them. Proving once again that the same problems exist everywhere.

According to the San Fernando Valley Sun, the chief complaint is the parking-protected bike lane on the southbound side — even though it was developed with public input at a series of workshops, something they fail to mention.

And even though, of the three people they quote, only one didn’t like the project. Although one bike rider, who liked the protected lane, was concerned that it was too narrow to be able to pass the hopefully nonexistent salmon cyclists who might ride in it the wrong way.

But according to one woman, no one wants to go there anymore because of conflicts with cyclists as they cross the bike lane to get to their cars.

Because it’s just so hard to look for someone riding a bicycle before you step off the curb.

To be fair, though, the same story could be written in any city, anywhere, after a street has undergone any kind of makeover. And probably has.

It’s human nature to resist change. Even change for the better.

So initially, it’s easy to find people who will complain, for whatever reason. Then within a few months, the complaints go away as most people grow accustomed to the changes.

And often grow to like it.

That is inevitably what will happen here, if they’d bothered to give it more than a few weeks.

But that doesn’t make for good headlines.

Especially when you can extrapolate the complaints of one woman into an entire angry community that probably isn’t there.

DTLA’s free Night on Broadway celebration enters its third year, with festivities scheduled for the end of this month, on January 28th. Let’s hope they remember to set up a bike valet this time around.

Seriously? A new Palm Springs safety campaign places responsibility firmly on potential traffic victims by promoting a new custom-made reflective vest for bike riders and pedestrians, and another for their dogs. Because there’s evidently no point in asking drivers to slow down and actually look for people and animals on the road with them, without making them dress like glow-in-the-dark clowns.

There’s a special place in hell for whoever stole several high-end bicycles from non-profit in San Francisco’s South Bay that helps people who can’t afford a bike. Although I’d hardly call least five bikes valued at a total of $3,000 high-end.

A Brit bicycle rider will spend the next three years and four months behind bars for pushing a 69-year old pedestrian, who died after hitting his head on the curb; considering this was his 18th conviction for various crimes, including violent assaults, 40 months hardly seems sufficient.

A walk down Sunset Boulevard over the weekend confirmed that Hollywood is the city’s second district where bicyclists are allowed to lock their bikes to specific parking meters where racks have been attached; Westwood Village was the first.

Racks are spaced one per block

Hopefully it will soon spread to other parts of the city, where it is still illegal to lock a bike to a parking meter, though the law is seldom enforced.

Now if they could just do something about providing people with safe places to ride their bikes, as called for in the hard-fought 2010 bike plan, now part of the LA Mobility Plan 2035. Virtually none of which exist today.

And which will be desperately needed when bikeshare comes to Hollywood in a few years, as promised.

Unless maybe those are just pretty lines on a map, and more of the empty promises we’ve long been used to.

This is why people keep dying on our streets. A Virginia driver won’t spend a day in jail, despite being convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a bike-riding college student — and despite a number of previous violations, including two hit-and-run charges.

Caught on video: An out-of-control Chinese truck smashes through traffic at a red light, mowing down everything in its path, including people on bikes, before blowing up in a burst of flames. Warning, this one may be particularly hard to watch.

Special thanks to Steve Herbert for his generous contribution to the BikinginLA Holiday Fund Drive. Donate today to help keep SoCal’s leading source for the freshest bike news and advocacy coming your way every morning.

Even auto-centric Los Angeles, with its disconnected non-network of mostly door zone bike lanes, has shown a significant improvement in safety while more than doubling ridership.

However, the point of the article is that it’s the type of bikeway that matters.

The safest kind of facility, by far, were cycle tracks, which are on-street bicycle lanes that are physically separated from motor vehicles by raised curbs, bollards, or concrete barriers.

The authors note that riding in a cycle track is 89% safer than riding on a major street with parking and no bike infrastructure; regular painted bike lanes on streets without parking were 53% safer.

Note the key words “without parking.”

Thus, removing car parking and replacing it with cycle tracks is an ideal way to improve cycling safety on major streets.

They also observe that lightly trafficked residential streets with no infrastructure were 56% safer, suggesting that you’re right to seek out back ways that allow you to avoid major streets. And that traffic calming is key to improving safety on local neighborhood streets.

They conclude,

It is crucial to provide physical separation from fast-moving, high-volume motor vehicle traffic and better intersection design to avoid conflicts between cyclists and motor vehicles. More and better bicycle infrastructure and safer cycling would encourage Americans to make more of their daily trips by bicycle and, thus, help raise the currently low physical activity levels of the US population.

A San Antonio bike rider is caught in the middle of a legal dispute after her bike was mangled in a crash while on the front rack of a city bus; the bus company refused to pay for damages, blaming the other driver.

The four Kalamazoo cyclists struck by a hit-and-run driver Thursday night had lights on their bikes and reportedly were doing everything right.

Police are looking for the cowardly schmuck who took off after running down a bike rider in LA’s Harvard Heights on Wednesday.

The collision occurred around 3 pm at the corner of Venice and Hobart Blvds as the cyclist reported he was blindsided by the collision. Fortunately, he suffered just cuts and bruises, along with a head wound that required six staples.

The driver was caught on a security camera stopping several blocks away to remove the mangled bike from underneath his minivan before getting back in and driving away.

If you hurry, you may still have time to make it up to the Sea Otter Classic in time to race your Brompton this evening. Coat and tie or dresses are required, although nothing says your attire must be gender appropriate.

Russian cyclist Eduard Vorganov can unretire now that doping officials say he gets a do-over. On the other hand, Italian rider Luca Paolini got an 18 month ban for doing coke during last year’s Tour de France, apparently mistaking the French countryside for Studio 54 in the ’80s.

Richard Risemberg employs his best WTF! in an attempt to comprehend why the Second Street bike lanes simply stop at Beverly Blvd, dumping riders into a complicated intersection with unforgiving traffic. Not unlike, say, most bike lanes in LA’s disconnected and discombobulated non-network.

The LA Sheriff’s Department has made an arrest in the hit-and-run that injured a woman in her 70s riding her bike in Agoura Hills last month; the detective said the juvenile driver was sorry, but he screwed up. Gee, you think?

A Wisconsin woman faces a homicide charge with up to 10 years behind bars for running down a bike rider while texting; she allegedly deleted her texts in an attempt to cover-up her crime.

Good news from Tennessee, as the controversial bill that would have barred the use of gas taxes for parks and bike lanes has been pulled by it sponsor.

Rather than develop compatible systems, Jersey City votes to limit commercial bikes from using city bike racks for more than two hours to keep Hoboken bikeshare users from hogging them. This could offer a hint to LA’s future, as Metro’s coming system won’t compatible with Santa Monica’s or systems planned for Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Westwood.

Security video proves NY cops hit a cyclist as he rode in a bike lane, after which they accused him of riding on the sidewalk, then lied on the accident report to shift the blame to him. Thanks to Michael Byerts for the heads-up.

New York considers a bill that would allow cops to use a device to scan drivers’ cell phones after a crash, and automatically suspend their licenses if they refuse. Checking cell phone use should be standard practice after any injury collision, anywhere.

Movistar rider Adriano Malori was hospitalized in intensive care after a massive crash due to a pothole in the Tour de San Luis in Argentina; he was the second place finisher in the time trial at last year’s Worlds.

I usually avoid linking to items sent to me by businesses, let alone embedding them, since they’re often nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at SEO marketing.

However, this infographic offers some great information about physically separated bike lanes, gathered from a number of studies. And clearly shows that protected bike lanes increase ridership while reducing crashes and injuries.

Consider it a crib sheet for your next public meeting.

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Local

A “crowd” of people turned out for Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s third annual Community Bike Ride on Saturday, followed by a workshop to highlight the Sherman Way Concept Plan.

Burglaries and bike thefts are up in LA’s upscale Brentwood neighborhood; the LAPD’s senior lead officer for the area urges residents to keep their bikes inside, and lock them up even if you keep yours inside a garage.

Richard Risemberg offers a noir tale involving private dicks, a nasty crack and an injured cyclist. All that’s missing is a femme fatale.

The Orange County Register’s David Whiting nails it with a column saying too many bicyclists have died on the county’s streets, and it only takes two seconds off your life to help ensure a longer one for someone on a bike. Although we’ve got to get him back on his own bike after the loss of a friend.

Oceanside approves a road diet, complete with wider bike lanes and buffers along the Coast Highway. Calling safety improvements a pilot study is a great way to overcome initial opposition and give it a chance to prove it works.

San Francisco police arrest one suspect and search for another following a brief pursuit when an officer saw the driver flee after hitting a bicyclist; however, the rider was gone when police went back to look for him.

A bighearted Stockton driver — yes, that’s sarcastic — checks his car for damage after rear-ending a 15-year old bike rider, asks if he’s okay, then just drives off after agreeing the bike was seriously messed up in the wreck.

The Chico newspaper calls for banning bikes from the city’s Esplanade and its frontage roads, apparently unaware that would be illegal. CA state law allows bicycles on any public roadway where motor vehicles are allowed, with the exception of some limited-access highways. So if they want to ban bikes, they’d have to ban cars, too.

Now that’s a bike-friendly university. My hometown college is boosting campus bike parking to 18,000 spaces, as well as offering showers for bike riders in the new chemistry and biology buildings and the soon-to-be-built on-campus stadium.

Belfast embarks on a “radical” plan to remake the city’s streets by improving existing infrastructure, building a bike-only street, and replacing car parking with cycle tracks.

In the ongoing saga of bike-riding Syrian refugees who exploited a loophole to cross the border into Norway from Russia, the latter country refuses to take them back after the former decided to boot them out. Nice to see so much human compassion for people fleeing the proxy wars in their battle-scared county.

A 30-year old triathlete suffers a broken neck, back, leg and shoulder when she was rear-ended by a driver in Buellton; needless to say, the person surrounded by a couple tons of steel, seat belts and air bags was uninjured. Thanks to Jeffrey Fylling for the link.

Sometimes you just can’t win, as San Francisco police ticket bike riders failing to properly navigate a badly designed intersection.

Alameda will cut the ribbon on the Bay Area’s longest buffered bike lane on Saturday. Note to the Contra Costa Times: a buffered bikeway is not the same as a protected bike lane, which features some sort of physical barrier.

Meanwhile, Streetsblog questions the relative lack of news stories about Sunday’s 10th CicLAvia since the first one rolled through Downtown on 10/10/10.

But maybe that’s a good thing.

CicLAvia may be huge in our world, but it’s not new anymore. It’s proven itself to be a huge success, and now has the funding and support to continue and grow beyond the confining limits of Los Angeles itself.

In a way, the lack of the breathless news stories we’ve seen in the past is a tacit acknowledgement that the event has become part of the fabric of the city.

……..

A Manhattan Beach bike rider suffered serious injuries when she was hit head-on by another cyclist where the Marvin Braude and Ballona Creek bike paths meet in Marina del Rey. To make matters worse, Ana Beatriz Cholo had no insurance since she was just starting a new job, so a fund has been created to help her pay her five-figure medical bills.

Let this be a reminder to never pass slower riders unless it’s safe to do so.

Which means never, ever passing if there’s a rider coming in the opposite direction. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve had to swerve suddenly — if not bail off the bike path entirely — to avoid someone who seemed to think he had a supreme right to the pathway.

Or maybe just lacked sufficient common sense to realize that the same safety rules that govern passing slower vehicles when driving apply on the bikeway, as well.

And if you’re ever involved in a collision with another cyclist, always give your name and contact information. Your car insurance should cover liability on your bike, as well.

It’s no less hit-and-run when a bike rider or pedestrian leaves the scene without identifying themselves after causing a collision than it is when a driver does it.

……..

A new study reconfirms the benefits of protected bike lanes. According to the study, ridership increased anywhere from 21% to 171% after protected lanes were installed, with 24% of the increase coming from other routes and a full 10% actually switching from other modes of transportation.

A San Luis Obispo woman charged in the hit-and-run death of a cyclist had three prior convictions for driving under the influence. Somehow, though, she was still allowed to remain on the road until she finally killed someone; too bad the judges and other authorities who helped keep her behind the wheel can’t be forced to serve some of her sentence with her.

A Chicago writer calls for banning bikes for a single day to give pedestrians a break. Not an entirely bad idea; maybe it would help the relatively few overly aggressive cyclists realize the risk they pose to others. But probably not.

A New Zealand editorial writer says a visit to DC shows separating bikes and cars is the best way to go, while an email writer says the Kiwi equivalent of a three-foot passing law is ridiculous because cyclists do bad things.

None remove the incentive for drunk drivers to flee the scene by making the penalty for hit-and-run equivalent to drunk driving penalties. And none call for seizing the vehicle used in a hit-and-run upon conviction.

There are no words. The junior world time trial champion, 18-year old Igor Decraene of Belgium, took his own life on Saturday.

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Local

Streetsblog’s Joe Linton offers five things he learned at the city council Transportation Committee meeting this week, including that protected bikeways may or may not be on the streets of LA in the coming year.

Proposed Redondo Beach redevelopment promises a 30 to 40 foot wide pedestrian and bike path along the waterfront; hopefully, they’ll get rid of that damned “cyclists dismount” zone in front of the pier while they’re at it.

State

I wonder how many drivers will be deterred by the whopping $35 fine for violating California’s new three-foot passing law.

AB 1193 would legalize protected bike lanes, which are currently considered experimental under California law, creating a fourth class of bikeways in the state to go along with Class 1 off-road bike paths, Class 2 bike lanes, and Class 3 bike routes.

I have no doubt CABO is sincere in their opposition, which appears to be based on maintaining the overly conservative Caltrans standards they helped create.

But their opposition stands in the way of encouraging more people to get on their bikes, and improving safety for all road users. And gives needless support to those in the legislature who oppose bicycling and bike infrastructure in general.

Instead of opposing a very good and necessary bill, they should find a way to support it. Or at the very least, stay neutral.

Or they will continue to find themselves out of step with most riders, and further marginalized in a state where the CBC has become the voice of mainstream bicycling.

The Deutschland high court wisely rules that not wearing a helmet is not contributory negligence in the event of a collision; I’m told some American juries are starting to find otherwise.

Finally…

Sidi unveils a new camo mountain bike shoe. You know, for all those cyclists who want to be even less visible when they ride. Then again, whenever I see someone wearing camo, I want to walk up to them and say “I can totally see you.”